Craig Hemke at Sprott Money: Did BIS swap gold out of GLD for recent price smash?

Drawing on the work of Robert Lambourne, GATA's consultant on the Bank for International Settlements, the TF Metals Report's Craig Hemke notes at Sprott Money today that the recent monthly gold swapping reported by the Bank for International Settlements corresponds almost precisely with the simultaneous draining of gold inventory from the exchange-traded fund GLD.

Lambourne reported last week that about 56 tonnes of gold swaps were placed by the BIS in February --

-- and Hemke notes today that 57 tonnes of gold were removed from GLD over roughly the same period even as the gold price was rising.

... Dispatch continues below ...

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Of course GATA's analysts long have expressed suspicion that GLD and the silver exchange-traded fund SLV, both effectively controlled by bullion banks HSBC and JPMorganChase, intimate agents of central banks, were created specifically to gather the gold of retail and institutional investors so it could be turned against their objective of higher prices.

Hemke asks: "Is this possible BIS-GLD connection just another example of bank collusion or is it simply a coincidence of numbers?"

Most likely that will have to remain a question, since the BIS refuses to account for its surreptitious trading in the gold market on behalf of its central bank members:

Of course central banks themselves are as unaccountable as they can be on this point. Indeed, the March 1999 secret report of the staff of the International Monetary Fund confirmed that central banks conceal their gold swaps and leases to facilitate their surreptitious interventions in the gold and currency markets: